This is the web site where I hope I shall be able to record details of my progress from Delhi down the western side of India from 15 November 2001 - 15 February 2002, with my travelling companion, Grahame Martin of Accrington, Lancashire. I live in Ilkley in West Yorkshire. Grahame and I met on holiday in Goa in January 2001. We will be separating in India around 1 February 2002 when Grahame will be returning to Delhi for his flight home on 15 Feb. I will be flying from Trivandrum in Kerala across to Colombo in Shri Lanka, where I will be spending my final two weeks before returning home on the same day as Grahame.

The web site is going to be a fairly simple one as I haven't had a great deal of time to prepare it since I first though of doing this, and I don't expect I shall have regular access to internet cafes to update our progress. But I shall try, whenever we emerge from the outback into some semblance of westernisation with internet facilities. Perhaps we may be able to add some photographs along the way, but I'm not making any promises.

This is me on the right, in Tasmania in January 2000. If you wish to get a message to me whilst I am away, you can do so by E-mail,

kevgil@ntlworld.com. That applies not only to those people I know, but to anyone else who happens to find this site and perhaps may be contemplating a similar trip & would like to ask a question. Grahame's E-mail address is greenlife1@aol.com.

Our plans are fairly fluid as far as timing is concerned. The only definite dates we have inked in besides our arrival and departure dates are to spend Christmas and New Year in Goa. Otherwise, we intend to hang around any place we take fancy to and move on if we don't like a place. We have, however, decided on our general route, which will take us from Delhi to Agra (Taj Mahal), Jaipur in Rajasthan and then into Gujarat where Grahame has a fascination about the earthquake which occurred in January 2000 whilst we were in Goa. The trouble with Gujarat is that it is a completely dry state, so I shan't to keen to hang around for too long. From Gujarat we will travel down through Maharashtra, possibly passing through Bombay (not sure yet) to Goa. In Goa we hope to meet up again with some friends, Gerry & Pauline Fish of Lytham, who we first met during our stay at the Riverside Guest House in Baga in January 2001. When we eventually leave Goa we will go through Karnataka and on down to the other tourist state of Kerala.

This is Grahame, October 2001.

WE have plans for when we get back to collaborate on a more comprehensive web site documenting our experiences, which we hope will be of some help and interest to other people contemplating a similar trip or even just a package trip to India or just Goa.

If you're contemplating a trip to India, you'll need a visa. For UK citizens, you can download a pfd format tourist visa application form (3 months max validity) from here

http://www.hcilondon.org/VisaForm.pdf. The visa cost is £30 plus postal/special delivery/postal order charges, which brings the total cost up to just over £40. They won't accept cheques. If applying in person, you'd have to go to the High Commission in either London or Birmingham.